WASHINGTON, DC, September 17, 2004 --/WORLD-WIRE/-- In a letter delivered today to the members of the U.S.
Senate Appropriation Committee's Subcommittee on Energy & Water, twenty-five member groups of the Sustainable Energy Coalition requested restoration of funding for key renewable energy programs in the U.S. Department of Energy's Fiscal Year 2005 (FY05) budget.

Noting that "the Administration budget has proposed cuts or seriously under funds programs critical to increased national energy security and environmental quality," the groups specifically urged restoration of fudning for key renewable energy programs. These include the Geothermal, Concentrated Solar Power, Solar Buildings, Biomass, Renewable Energy Production Incentive, and General Program Direction line items.

The specific recommendations are provided in the text of the letter below which also includes the list of signing organizations.

The Sustainable Energy Coalition is a coalition of nearly 100 national and state energy policy, business, consumer, and environmental organizations which collectively represent several thousand companies and community
groups. founded in 1992, the Ssutainable Energy Coalition promotes increased use of renewable energy and energy efficient technologies.

As the Subcommittee approaches its markup of the FY05 Energy and Water
Appropriations bill, we wish to point out several particular areas of
concern. In particular, the Administration budget has proposed cuts or
seriously under funds programs critical to increased national energy
security and environmental quality.

Concentrated Solar Power

The program should be funded at least $10 million dollars in the light of a
recent positive technical due diligence study on the part of DOE, the
National Academy of Sciences and independent consultants, Sargent and Lundy,
and the growing market interest in ongoing projects in Arizona, California,
and Nevada.

Geothermal Energy

The Administration's budget cuts this program by just over $3 million, which
we urge the Subcommittee to reverse. The reduction was reportedly intended
to penalize Congress for earmarks in the program's FY03 funding. (In FY03,
the geothermal program was funded at $29,390,000.) The Administration
request of $25,800,000 will force the DOE geothermal program to make
damaging cuts in its baseline program. This could result in eliminating
funding for significant portions of the programs advanced technology
development efforts. We urge the Subcommittee to restore the geothermal
program to at least $30 million in FY 2005, equivalent to level funding
compared to FY03.

Renewable Energy Production Incentive

The Department of Energy’s Renewable Energy Production Incentive Program
(REPI) was created in 1992’s Energy Policy Act (EPAct) as a counterpart to
the renewable energy production tax credits made available to for-profit
utilities. It needs and deserves significantly more funding than requested,
and we would urge the Subcommittee to consider providing at least $13
million for REPI. EPAct authorizes the Department to make direct payments
to not-for-profit public power systems and rural electric cooperatives at a
rate near 1.8 cents per kWh for electricity generated from solar, wind,
geothermal and biomass projects. In order to fully fund all REPI
applicants, $60 million would be needed for FY 2005, yet only $4 million has
been requested. We urge the subcommittee to provide at least $13 million.
The House passed a $5 million appropriation for the program and we are
hopeful the Senate will pass at least an equal or greater amount.

Solar Buildings

The Solar Buildings program should grow to $5 million overall to meet the
developing needs of advanced solar hybrid lighting and solar thermal
projects, which could contribute directly to substantial reductions in US
natural gas and electricity consumption in the immediate future.

Biomass

DOE funding for Biomass, including Biofuels and Biopower/energy, should be
at FY04 levels or higher, and funds for hydrogen, except those dedicated to
renewable hydrogen from biomass, should not be taken from appropriations
intended for the advance of biomass science, technologies and industries.
Biomass is becoming increasingly attractive to the transportation fuels and
power industries as important additions in the transition from heavy to
lighter carbon fuels. Well directed R, D and D is essential to the success
of this transition.

General Program Direction

In addition to specific funding recommendations, we wish to make several
observations about the DOE programs for the Subcommittee to consider in
crafting its report language:

The Distributed Energy RD&D program within the DOE Renewable Energy RD&D
program has focused primarily on non-renewable technologies. We would
prefer that the program focus on crosscutting technologies that assist the
broadest possible benefits to all renewable applications - including smart
interconnection both at the transmission and customer side of the meter,
energy storage, advanced Combined Heat and Power concepts, and hybrid
systems using multiple energy sources.

While Program Direction has grown to encompass internal activities, the
Program should include a significant subset of activities to enhance the
knowledge of biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar and wind resources both
in the US and globally. The program should also input this information in a
timely manner into the technology RD&D programs so that they can plan
technology improvements on the particular resource characterizations.
Finally, the program should create and maintain a list of distributed
generation and related products and equipment that have been certified by
nationally recognized testing laboratories so that project developers can
use such equipment in projects interconnected to the grid without having to
retest its performance characteristics.

We appreciate the Subcommittee’s past support for DOE's renewable energy
programs. Thank you for your consideration of our views on these specific
issues that we hope you will address in the FY 05 appropriations process.